Food in Argentina

Lou: In contrast to the personal sized pizzas of Chile (with strange toppings—such as green beans & avocado!), pizza here seems to be more like a full sized pizza (with sauce and cheese and “normal” toppings). Though it escapes me how anyone would think to sprinkle hard-boiled eggs for a topping! In fact there doesn’t seem to be much thought to cholesterol in the restaurants. Cheese, grease & eggs abound! But in the health food stores (dieticas) there are special mixes to add to soup or milk to help you get your omega 3’s. I’m looking forward to frequenting these stores for all of the grains and legumes they have in bulk.

Back to the restaurants, Dan can fill you in on all the variations of beef there are. We find that just about all of the menus look the same to us. I’ve been enjoying the freshly made spinach ravioli. For some change, it was fun to go to a “taco bar”. Not exactly what we remember of Mexican food, but fun to see yet another country’s take on regional fare. And we thought Minnesota style salsa had no heat! To our disappointment there don’t seem to be any Chinese restaurants in town.

Ice cream places abound. Each with at least 20 flavors! There are many fruit flavors, and probably at least 5 different chocolate flavors (like Swiss or almonds or Rocher)—Not mixes or swirls, just plain flavors! They scoop it up tall like a gnome hat & then ask if you would like chocolate or strawberry sauce on top. Last night it was still warm out & we stopped for a cone on our way home. It was fun to see a line going out the door at an ice cream shop at one in the morning! We got a cone of lemon mousse and raspberry cream. I guess it is a bit barbaric to eat out of the cone because they give you a little plastic sampler spoon to use.

I haven’t had as many fruits here as in Chile, but I think they will be just as delicious here. The peaches that we did buy were so good! It really does make a difference to get fruit that wasn’t picked green! Nothing strange, pretty much the same tree fruits that you could get in the states. I haven’t seen any cactus tunas here, but in Chile they were very common (& very seedy!).

Beauty queen showdown

Dan: Oooooo weee! It’s hot! It has been in the mid-90s the last few days. Somebody told me it was 38 degrees Celcius today. I was watching the local soccer game on TV and they had people aiming a firehose into the grateful crowd. Luckily we have an air conditioner so no such measures were required here.

This weird wine festival has begun. We could tell by the midnight fireworks we watched in the courtyard. It is also hard to ignore the princess propaganda plastered all over town. I think all summer, each weekend some region in the wine producing area has elected a princess. This week they are all here in the provincial capital for the big no-holds-barred, princess battle royale to celebrate the wine harvest. We see posters for favored candidates in shop windows. There are life-sized cutouts in front of the newspaper building that people walk by and examine. But we’re still trying to figure out what the bulk of this festival is about. It might be about costumed dance performances at the park amphitheater. Also, we’re told that there will be a parade next Friday. This will include “carros alegoricos”, or allegorical cars. I saw them trimming the trees on Avenida San Martin today, so maybe we can expect some tall allegories.

We ran into a side event just around the corner from our hotel. A man was playing guitar and people were dancing. I don’t generally get into big dress-up dance shows, but this was just normal folks, dancing folk-dances on an urban street corner. A few younger people, some older couples in their street clothes dancing cuecas, chacareras and sambas. It was like a link to the past, and a nice change to that one Red Hot Chilli Peppers we’ve been hearing over and over.

Don't look down!

View of the road behind us as the bus climbed up to the border pass. Above: Dan briefly joins the circus.

Huge oak barrels at a bodega (winery). Each is over 100,000 Liters.

bus adventure

Dan: The nice people at the front desk of the hotel have given me some ideas of places to leave my resumes (known as Curiculum Vitaes, or C.V.s here). One of them gave me the name of someone at the National University of Cuyo, from whom I could some advice. So today walked around the corner and got on the first bus that came, and it magically brought me to the University. I eventually found the professor and had a short chat. She gave me some more ideas of language institutes to talk to and basic advice on what to expect.

I was hoping to find a kind of University barrio, like the one in San Jose, Costa Rica, where I might be able to find a used book shop and cheap eats. But this particular institute of higher learning seems to be on a large piece of land, away from the city; kind of and island. But feeling good about our short meeting, I found a bus stop, picked one of two buses that happened to be there (both of which I thought said were going downtown), and went on my magical bus journey to Godoy Cruz. It seemed the bus was going the wrong way. I tried to follow its course on my tourist map, and felt a slight bump as we left the map altogether. Into the unknown. As one by one the college kids got off the bus to go home for lunch and siesta, I never gave up hope that soon this bus would turn around and bring me back to familiar territory. Until I was the only passenger and driver said “end of the line.” He kindly told me where to await the bus that would bring me back from the neighboring city of Godoy Cruz to the Centro. I got off and waited for the next bus. So after a total of maybe an hour and fifteen minutes on buses, I finally got to somewhere I felt I could walk from. Sadly, I don’t think I learned any lesson about which bus to take. Next time I think I’ll ask around at the bus stop and be more choosy about which one to take. Although I pretty much drained all the credit on my bus card from all the different fares, I still got quite a tour for about $0.70.

Food: Here in Mendoza, they sell more pasta than over in Chile. The most popular seem to be tallarines (spaghetti), fettuccini, ravioli(cheese, meat, spinach) and ñoqui (gnocchi). We can thank major Italian immigration a hundred years ago for diversifying the mostly meat menu. Accompanying sauces are fairly predictable; bolognesa, tomato, cream. For awhile we were going out to eat 2 times a day, and believe it or not, it was getting a little old. I miss our wok! I miss our fridge full of condiments! Don’t take your condiments for granted, Dear Reader. They are the spice of lunch. Now that we have a little kitchen, we are able to do more of our own cooking.

New room, new routines

Lou: We seem to be in the grittier part of town, though we like our temporary little home a lot. We have an “apart hotel” room. It’s like something you might find on the north shore to rent for a week or so. We have a bedroom, a kitchen/dining room, and our own bathroom. We are slowly making little excursions that go a little farther from home each time. Last night we made our way (by bus!) to the huge city park on the edge of town. We made our way back along a street full of restaurants and bars. That area had a younger feel to it, which makes sense since it’s nearer to the universities. We made some (tourist) friends to hang out with for the evening at a micro-brew bar (which I’m sure we’ll be back to!).

We think that we are starting to get the hang of the daily schedule. It’s amazing that many stores (even the central market) close up at 1 or 2 pm and re-open again at 5 pm. We joke about our month of Sundays. We wake up 8 or 9 am, take a nap during siesta (about 2 or 3pm), and then, sometimes go out or just stay up until 12 or 1 am. It is hard for us to get used to eating supper after 9 pm, though!

Other observations: green & trees! Our dollar goes further here than in Chile. Wine is about $3 and eating out as well as buying groceries is maybe about 1/3 of what it would be in the Cities. Keys for doors seem to all be the skeleton-key type. The streets are crazy busy with families doing back to school shopping this week.

Coast pictures

We stopped to pose with a moai that was guarding a cool archeology/natural history museum in Vina del Mar.
The view (perhaps of Cerro Alegre) from Cerro Concepcion (where we stayed in Valparaiso).

Vina del Mar. Resort hotels and beaches in the background. Farmer's tan/burn in the foreground.

Pictures San Cristobal, Santiago, Chile

From the top of Cerro San Cristobal




















View at the top of the tracks for the cable car. Yep, that's a pretty steep grade--with no view of the bottom

Un nuevo pais (a new country)

Lou: We had a beautiful (but long) bus ride over the Andes. We could see Mount Aconcagua (highest mountain in S. America) in the distance. The customs stop was a lot of waiting around; we heard that colectivos (van type taxis) get through a little more quickly. Perhaps we'll try that next time.

So, here we are in Mendoza! More of the same getting to know the place activities: where is the grocery store, where can we stay affordably, etc. There is a big wine festival next week where they will crown a new festival queen. Perhaps we will do some tourist stuff next week during the festival. Mendoza feels comfortable--& a little touristy. Not so much gringo tourists as others from different parts of South America.

The Spanish spoken here seems to be a little more understandable than what we encountered in Chile--to our relief. We have both gained a little confidence in our language skills (Dan more so than me--of course) I could tell Dan was getting used to the Chilean dialect & understanding more, though he didn't realize it.

We stayed the first night in a hostel and went out to eat with a gringo who was living in Chile, and his roommate from Brazil, & other Brazilians. It was nice to get different perspectives on things from other people. We also realized that maybe we're getting a little old to stay in a hostel-- by the reaction we got from 26 year old that thought he was feeling old in the hostel. Since we have to change our names a little to make them more pronounce-able, maybe we can change our ages while we are here, too! Perhaps we can be 26 while in South America.

The vacation's over! Dan went out today to spread resumes, & I spent the morning doing laundry by hand in a big wash sink.

is that snow?

Dan: The news programs are still talking about the unexpected summer rains. I guess it hasn’t happened in 40 years. Up in the mountains this rain became summer snow. They keep showing footage of campers’ tents covered in snow. I didn’t realize that cold rain in Santiago meant snow in the higher altitudes until we were crossing Avenida Provedencia, on the way to a movie. The rain had removed all the crap from the air. Crossing the street, I happened to look to my right, and saw the snow-covered mountains behind the city skyline. It took me a few seconds to register what I was seeing and tap Louann on the shoulder and point at the Andes. The Andes! We managed to get out of the street before we stopped to stare at the awesome sight of snow-covered peaks and clear skies.

Food: Empanadas are homemade Hot Pockets®. They come in baked and fried varieties. The most common kinds seem to be cheese and Pino. What is Pino? The first day we were in Chile, Lou wasn’t feeling so hot and requested that I find something bready to eat. I wandered until I found a bakery. Mmmm, Empanadas. Being a little out of practice with the Spanish, and just very excited to be in a foreign land ordering food, I mistook pino for the word piña, which I always knew as pineapple. Louann took a bite or two and realized that it was definitely not pineapple. Pino is an empanada filled with ground beef, an olive and a slice of hard boiled egg --- three things Louann does not particularly care for. We traded empanadas.

una lluvia sorpresiva (a surprising rain)

Dan: Speaking of bad timing, today there was a freak rain shower. There hasn’t been a drop in Santiago since September and a few people have told us that it NEVER rains in February. Well it happened to have begun raining while we were walking from buying bus tickets, and continued to rain all morning and into the afternoon, when we had to change hostels and walk ½ a mile with all our possessions in our backs. For those readers who thought it was crazy to leave for a year with only a well-stuffed backpack apiece, I must say that if you were in our wet shoes this morning, you would’ve wished you had packed even less. But it felt more like somebody’s romantic, roughing-it image of trekking in South America; drenched, burdened and trying not to knock over any morning commuters with our packs. We found our new temporary home, a place I think called Marilu’s B & B. It is a clean place with nice shared kitchen and living room areas. Despite the challenging, cold, wet morning, we are both feeling in good spirits. The crappy day has given us an excuse to take a day off, read, stretch, make soup, drink coffee.

Maybe we’ll get over to the park at Cerro Santa Lucia later today. Also there is an artsy movie theater near here that is playing a movie about Inti-Illimani, one of my favorite Chilean music groups, so maybe we’ll check that out. My legs are still a bit itchy from bedbugs at the place in Vina del Mar, so maybe a restful day and some hydrocortisone cream will help make tomorrow’s 7 hour bus ride across the Andes a little more comfortable.

time

Dan: I know we’re only 3 hours ahead of central time, and after a week we should be just fine, right? I don’t know what the deal is, but we seem to still be a little bit off in everything we do here. We tend to get hungry at the wrong times, when restaurants are empty or closed. We arrive at tourist attractions when they are just about to close for the day, or are closed for renovations. We wake up too late, take siesta too early, find happy hours 5 minutes too late. We haven’t adapted to a culture that eats dinner at 9 or 10:00.

We are having a hard time getting out of Chile. Learning the ropes isn’t as easy as we thought it might be. We just figured we’d go to the bus station on the other side of town and get our bus tickets for tomorrow morning. No such luck. Sold out. Also I couldn’t reserve for the following day either, because we didn’t bring our passports with us to reserve international bus tickets. So back to the hostel tonight. We’ll try again tomorrow. It’s always nice to travel when at least someone in your party has a clue. In our case we’re figuring it out ourselves as we go along (preparing the way for when our friends and family come to visit…) and wasting a lot of time in the process. Good thing I have a whole year leave of absence.

Food: I had a sandwich tonight called a Barros Luco. Do you remember Steak-ums? It’s pretty much a Steak-ums minute steak sandwich on a roll with cheese and a funny name. This sandwich can be had at any Fuente de Soda, or diner, in the city. Also found on the table at any of these places you will find 3 condiment bottles; green, yellow and red. Green = ketchup, yellow = mustard, red = aji, a mild red pepper sauce.

lou's 2 pesos

Lou: So we grabbed a few things & headed toward the beach. The first night seaside, we stayed at a hostel on the hilltop of Cerro Concepcion in Valpo (Valparaiso). This meant more rides up cable elevator cars to get up the small hill (it was well worth the $.20 to $1 for the ride—as opposed to walking up San Francisco type streets!) We heard that this was the cool place to be—a place with a “Bohemian feel”. But we weren’t really sure what there was to do there other than check out the views or hang out on the side of the street-- like we saw a few young people doing. There were a few artisan shops and art exhibit places open during the day, but we didn’t really figure out the scene.

The next day, we made our way to Viña del Mar by commuter train; its just up the bay. The town was interesting in that there were very nice places for the tourists—where restaurants, bars, green space and nice hotels abound. Then, there was also the area where we stayed that was still very tourist-y, but had older buildings. Getting a room was more in the lines of getting a room in an old (sometimes a bit run down) building or Victorian style house.

We ventured to the beach, and well, that’s what you do in Viña! There were a lot of people, but as with the rest of our experience in Chile, it felt very safe & family oriented. We managed to come away with only a little sunburn in the places that we missed the sunblock. The high’s were only in the 70’s, and with the ocean breeze, it didn’t really feel all that warm. The ocean was cold, not Lake Superior cold, but cold. Kids played in the waves near shore.

Random first impressions: the definition of pizza is open for interpretation; the fruit is wonderful; downtown Santiago (the capitol city) is not the metropolis of skyscrapers that I expected; the people speak so fast (I’m having trouble understanding even the simplest things—I find myself hanging on Dan’s shirt-tail because he’s the only person I can understand!); public transport is pretty easy, extensive and safe; it is not a total culture shock on the streets and in the day to day kinds of things, but it still feels very Latin American to me –central markets with stalls selling meat or fish or fruit, paying for one’s ration of toilet paper at the public bathrooms, people selling things on blankets or carts on the sidwalks, beggars, the lines of small shacks outside of town…

trains, planes and funiculares

Dan: Though we’ve already used no fewer than 7 forms of public transportation, we’ve decided that the name for this blog should be subtitled ”the biped diaries”, just because whenever we go somewhere, we tend to do a lot of walking. So far this trip has been no exception.

The first few days were spent in the downtown area of Santiago, Chile. This area is bustling in the daytime and sort of a ghost town at night. On Saturdays especially, the pedestrian malls are crowded with shoppers, vendors and performers. Despite the warnings of every guidebook, I am not able to resist sampling the foods sold by street vendors. We tried something called Mote con Huesillos on a hot afternoon. It was a glass of flavored (I think with tamarind) water, half a peach, and the bottom of the cup filled with a grain of some sort, wheat maybe. Cool, refreshing, and energizing. Anyone who knows me knows how important dinnertime is. And lunchtime. Not breakfast so much. Maybe my portion of this blog will be about the things I’ve eaten this year. And my opportunity to type ungrammatically. And to begin sentences with “and.”

I don’t know if it is unwarranted, but I’ve felt relatively safe in Santiago, even downtown, which everyone says can get a little sketchy, any time of day we’ve been out. So far I haven’t had to bust out the old kung-fu.

The subway of Santiago seems pretty straightforward, clean, and efficient. Our first ride took us to Bellavista, where we went to the Santiago landmark, Cerro San Cristobal. To get up the hill, one pays for a ride on a funicular, a kind of old-school elevator on railroad tracks. From the top, we had a nice view of the entirety of Santiago, and some of the mountains that surround it. Also perched atop the peak is a large statue of The Virgin, watching over the citizenry. From the top, we took a gondola down the other side of the hill.(how many forms of transportation is that now?) Now when I say hill, I don’t mean like Buck Hill. In fact, if such a hill were located in Minnesota, we would surely call it a mountain and plant resorts, chairlifts, cabins, and a waterslide on it. The Chileans, on the other hand, merely put two swimming pools, a gondola line, playgrounds, a botanical garden, a zoo, restaurants, an amphitheater-church and a 30-foot tall Virgin Mary atop it. But they call it a hill.